


Just a Call Away

by isabeau25



Series: Comfortember [3]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Comfortember 2020, Fluff, Gen, Prompt: Anxiety
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27614275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isabeau25/pseuds/isabeau25
Summary: Four times Eliot answers a call from his teammates, and one time they answer a call from him
Relationships: Parker & Eliot Spencer (Leverage), Sophie Devereaux & Eliot Spencer (Leverage)
Series: Comfortember [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2012851
Comments: 16
Kudos: 85





	1. Parker

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Comfortember](https://comfortember.tumblr.com/post/628381629921017856/comfortember). The prompt for the first chapter is anxiety. I may hit some of the other prompts as I work my way through the chapters.

Eliot was asleep. Actually asleep. Under his nice fluffy down comforter, and he had just washed his sheets, and the bruising on his ribs was finally healed enough for him to sleep on that side without it hurting.

And his phone rang.

He should have left it in the living room, or turned it off, or tossed it out the window, or literally anything besides leaving it sitting on his nightstand. But he hadn’t. So he reached a hand out of his nice warm cocoon of blankets and groped blindly for it, pulling it back under the comforter to put to his ear.

“What?” he slurred, too groggy to even really be surly.

“I need help,” Parker said by way of greeting. 

The team had called him far more times than Eliot cared to keep track of for that exact thing, enough times that it no longer immediately incited panic in him, since it was, more often than not, not actually an emergency, particularly where Hardison and Parker were concerned. “We ran out of cookies” and “we need more blankets for movie night” were not conversations that should have started with “I need help.”

Parker’s voice wavered though, and there was just enough panic in it to have Eliot pushing himself out of bed and looking for the nearest pair of pants. 

“Where are you?” Eliot asked.

“Nebraska,” Parker sounded nervous admitting it.

“Nebra…” Eliot dropped back to the edge of his bed heavily, “Parker, I’m in Boston!”

“I know,” something that sounded very much like desperation entered her voice, “I’m lost, and you know military stuff, so you can help.”

Eliot ran a rough hand over his face and tried calm both his frustration and his anxiety. _Military stuff_ , _Parker_ , and _lost_ were not things that should go together, especially when Eliot was half way across the country from her. He could deal with that later though. For now, he needed to try to get her out of whatever mess she had gotten herself into. 

“What’s going on?” he did his best to keep his voice level; Parker could and would shut down on him if she thought he was angry with her.

“I got a tip that there was a stash of stolen World War II paintings hidden in an old cold war bunker in Nebraska,” Parker’s voice came across calmer now that she knew Eliot would help her.

As if that had ever been in questions.

“You’re lost in a cold war bunker?” Eliot couldn’t help the rise in his voice.

“I had the route all planned out, but then I got turned around, and all the halls look the same,” Parker snapped.

“They do that on purpose,” Eliot snapped back.

He could charter a private jet and be there in six hours, maybe five if he threw enough money at the charter company. He could call in a favor with one of his military buddies, and maybe, if he was really lucky, be there in four hours, but favors from military buddies could be complicated, and Parker would be fine for an extra hour or two… probably… maybe.

“See, you know military stuff,” Parker huffed, “tell me how to get out. There are markings on the walls, but I don’t know what any of them mean.”

There was a chance Eliot wasn’t going to know either. He had been in a handful of top secret military bunkers in his life, both with and without permission, but none of them had been cold war era, and while notation and signage was kind of standardized, it did change over time and a certain percentage of secret bases put up signage to intentionally confuse people.

He could at least try to talk Parker through, he guessed. She didn’t seem to be in immediate danger and if he could help her find her way out, that would be faster than her having to wait for him to get there.

“Okay, stay on the line and tell me what you see,” Eliot directed.

“I can’t,” the nervousness was back in Parker’s voice.

“Can’t what?” Eliot scowled, wishing Parker was there for him to scowl at.

“I can’t stay on the line,” Parker clarified, “I had to climb to the top of this big round room to get a signal, but I don’t think there’s any way out through here.”

“You climbed to the top of a missile silo,” Eliot said flatly.

“There’s no missile,” Parker countered, as if that was the problem.

This team was going to be the death of him, he just knew it.

“Okay, you are going to tell me exactly where this bunker is,” Eliot said firmly, “and I’m going to tell you what to look for so you can try and find your way out. You’re going to call me any time you can get a signal, and if I don’t hear from you with in an hour, I’m flying out there to get you.”

He kind of wanted to make the last part a threat, but neither of them would have believed that.

“Okay,” Parker agreed.

She listened carefully as Eliot explained how military notation usually worked, repeating the information back to him when he asked. Then, he had to let her hang up.

It was a very long four hours while Eliot was forced to wait for Parker’s irregular calls. He spent the time pacing restlessly, running through every possible scenario and outcome, all the things that could go wrong, from Parker getting hurt, to getting lost and not being able to reach him to tell him, to finding herself locked behind failsafe doors that didn’t unlock once they had been triggered, to the owners of the stash coming back and catching her or just killing her on the spot.

He almost chartered the flight out twice, but both times he was interrupted by Parker calling, and he hung up on the hold music to answer.

Finally, finally, though, Parker found her way out, and Eliot could hear crickets chirping and the wind rustling in the grass when she called, and he felt like he could breathe again without something trying to crush his chest.

“Thanks, Eliot,” Parker chirped, apparently none the worse for wear.

Eliot was feeling much worse for wear and did not appreciate the cheerfulness.

“Now that I know how to get around, I should go back and get the paintings,” Parker continued happily, “there’s supposed to be…”

“No, you will not,” Eliot cut her off with a snarl, “you are going to get on the next flight home, and if I don’t see you in person in the next eight hours, I’m going to take all the diamonds you have stashed under the floor at that warehouse you own on 9th street, sell them for half of what they’re worth, and give all the money to a clown school.”

“I didn’t know you knew about that stash,” Parker said meekly, then added in a somewhat horrified whisper, “clowns have schools?”

That was definitely not the thing to be horrified about here.

“Eight hours, Parker,” Eliot said firmly, then hung up.

He slid to the floor and leaned back against his bed, muscles aching from the constant tension vibrating through him for the last four hours, and pressed his forehead to his knees. He didn’t think Parker really understood just how much trouble she had been in. Some of those underground facilities were huge, and with no easy way to stay in touch with her, it could have been days, if not weeks, until they found her, and that wasn’t even taking into account the possibility of her getting caught, and what the people who caught her would do to her.

He was glad she had called, glad she hadn’t waited until she was starting to suffer from dehydration and hunger, or the guys who the stuff belonged to came back and started shooting, but it was hard to quantify just how much stress his team created for him.

He glanced down at the floor where he had dropped his phone. He was tempted to call Hardison and ask him to track Parker and make sure she really didn’t go back down into the bunker, or Nate, so he would chew Parker out before he took on the job of recovering and returning the stolen art, or even Sophie, just to have someone to rant to. Anyone, just so he didn’t have to sit here alone with his frayed nerves.

Instead, he shoved himself to his feet and went to go spend some quality time with his punching bag. It wasn’t like he was going to get anymore sleep any time soon.

* * *

Seven hours and forty-three minutes later, Parker appeared next to him so abruptly he almost dropped his spoon into the stew he was stirring.

“Please don’t sell my diamonds,” Parker said quickly.

Eliot contemplated smacking her with the spoon. Not hard, just enough to sting. Maybe a little hard. He could say she had startled him and it was reflex.

Parker hugged him before he could decide, and he was forced to put the spoon down so he didn’t get stew on her shirt.

“Thank you for helping me,” she ducked her head against his shoulder.

Eliot sighed heavily and wrapped his arms around her, “anytime, darling.”

Because he always wanted her to call. No matter what, he wanted her to call him if she got into trouble. He didn’t want to find out about it after it was too late to do anything.

“Also, Sophie said you probably weren’t really going to sell my diamonds, and that you were just worried about me because you care, and I should apologize for scaring you,” Parker squeezed him a little tighter, “so, sorry for scaring you.”

Eliot wasn’t sure if Parker really understood what Sophie had been trying to tell her or was just doing what she thought would make him less upset with her. Either one seemed like progress in a certain way, and at least she was safe now.

He pressed his face into her hair and closed his eyes.

“I really would have sold your diamonds,” he assured her.

“Oh,” Parker frowned into his shoulder, “does that mean you care a lot or that I scared you a lot?”

“Yes,” he grumbled.

“Okay,” Parker was quiet for a moment, her grip still tight around his shoulders, “will you help me burn down all the clown schools?”

“No!” Eliot gave her a quick, hard squeeze, making her squeak, then let her go, “go set the table. Dinner’s almost ready.”

“Okay,” Parker grinned at him, then hesitated before kissing him on the cheek, “you scare me sometimes, too.”

Before Eliot could ask, she had turned away to start pulling things out of the cupboards. He stared at her for a minute before turning back to his stew. If anyone was ever going to turn his hair grey, it was going to be Parker, but he was glad to have her home.


	2. Sophie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sophie gets to enjoy a waltz. Eliot gets to enjoy good Thai food.

Eliot had found a variety of good looking mushrooms at the farmers market earlier in the day and bought more than he really should have with no plan for what to do with them. By late afternoon, he had a mushroom risotto in the works for dinner and plans to make mushroom bourguignon the next day.

Nate had promised him the team wouldn’t take any more jobs until the stitches in Eliot’s arm were out, and while that didn’t necessarily mean much where Nate was concerned, Eliot was hoping for at least a few quiet days where he got to actually cook what he planned to cook.

The shallots and mushrooms were sizzling away in the sauté pan, and the chicken stock was just starting to simmer when his phone went off. It was the stupid Star Trek ship communicator beep that Hardison had programed into his phone for texts, and he hadn’t gotten around to figuring out how to change it yet. He really needed to change it.

The only people with the number for this particularly phone were the team, and they texted him all the time, so he wasn’t particularly alarmed when he leaned over to see what they wanted this time.

That changed quickly.

_In trouble_

Eliot hastily put his knife down on the pile of half chopped parsley and reached for his phone. It was Sophie, and she was considerably less prone to exaggeration than Parker or Hardison.

_Need exit_

If she was texting instead of calling, then she wasn’t in a position to talk, and he couldn’t call her to get her location. Eliot wiped his hands hastily on his apron and unlocked his phone to call Hardison to try to get a trace on her location, but the next text came through before he got that far.

_Mandarin oriental ballroom_

Eliot flipped off the burners without a second thought to his mushrooms, which were definitely going to be an oily ruin by the time he got back to them. He was almost to the door when one more text came.

_Wear tux_

Eliot groaned. Sophie had pulled him into her side cons once or twice before without warning, but he had made it clear after the second time that if she wanted help with that sort of thing, she needed to be straight with him, or they were both going to end up hurt. She had been good about not doing it since then.

That made him reasonably sure that the demand for dress attire was about getting into the place while drawing as little attention to himself as possible, but it was still a nuisance. He owned two tuxes, but both of them were badly in need of a trip to the dry cleaner, and his dress shoes were still muddy from the last con he had worn them on.

He hastily shrugged into the cleaner of his tuxes anyway and knocked as much mud off his shoes as he could running down the stairs to his car.

Twenty-five minutes later he was slipping through the service tunnels of the Oriental, tying his hair back in an effort to look more like he hadn’t just thrown on a somewhat rumpled tux and rushed across town. He managed to slip into the ballroom entirely unnoticed, and the relief was visceral when he spotted Sophie, back in a corner, surrounded by a semi-circle of enamored spectators. He hadn’t gotten anything from her since her clothing recommendation, and he hadn’t wanted to text her back in case it drew unwanted attention to her phone.

Now that he had eyes on her, he was confident he could get her out safely, and he took a moment to get a read on the room. The guy standing closest to her was definitely the problem. He was too focused on Sophie, too close, and she kept shifting away from him under the guise of listening or talking to other guests.

There were a number of bodyguards in the room, which was hardly a surprise given the type of party this seemed to be. Eliot recognized a gaggle of local politicians, a rather odd smattering of minor European nobility, and he thought he spotted at least one Fortune 500 CEO. This was the sort of crowd that Sophie loved to work.

Eliot was less enthusiastic about it. It wasn’t hard to pick out the bodyguards that belonged to Sophie’s stalker. There were three of them, one with eagle eyes on his boss and Sophie, and two watching the room. They looked like they knew their stuff, and one of them had the distinctive stance of former special ops.

Eliot wasn’t very eager to start a fight in the middle of a crowded ballroom, or anywhere else for that matter. He had no doubt he could do it, he just didn’t want to with fourteen stitches in his arm and a broken finger on his left hand. He definitely needed to have another conversation with the team about thinking through their back-up plans when they did side jobs, because ‘hope Eliot answers his phone and isn’t too injured to fight’ was not a great back-up.

All he really had to do was get Sophie away from the guy, then they could disappear into the crowd and slip out the back. There was a live quartet playing and a few dozen couples dancing in the center of the room. A pretty girl like Sophie had to have no shortage of people wanting to dance with her.

Eliot took his time working his way over to her, not wanting to draw the attention of the bodyguards until he had to. He could tell she had seen him because her posture had relaxed, and she had become more animate and fluid in her gestures and conversation.

By the time Eliot got to the group, Sophie’s stalker was holding her arm possessively, and Eliot considered punching him just for the hell of it. He looked like he would go down easy with just one punch.

He refrained though, slipping into the group surrounding them and stepping to the front.

“You look like a lady who could use a dance,” Eliot interrupted whatever inane story the man was telling.

“That would be lovely,” Sophie extracted herself gracefully and took Eliot’s offered arm.

“The lady is spoken for,” the guy reached for her, but she evaded him neatly, her grip tightening just slightly on Eliot.

“Don’t be such a prude, Atticus,” Sophie’s voice was light and teasing, and the gawkers around them laughed.

Atticus looked murderous, but he let them go, and Eliot pulled Sophie out onto the dance floor.

“Atticus? Really?” Eliot gripped as he guided Sophie smoothly into the first turn of the waltz that was playing.

“Thank you so much,” the smile on Sophie’s face didn’t reflect the anxiety in her voice, “I knew Atticus had a reputation for being a ladies’ man, but I didn’t know he was such a pervert or that his bodyguards were enablers.”

“Are you okay?” maybe Eliot would find the time to punch him after he got Sophie out.

“I’m fine,” Sophie assured him with a squeeze of his hand, “the wanker had his bodyguards ‘escort’ me everywhere, even the ladies’ room. I couldn’t find an opening to get away.”

“They’re definitely watching us now,” Eliot started leading Sophie in the direction of the service exit he had come in from, “we’re probably going to have to make a run for it at some point.”

“I can’t believe you made me teach Hardison to waltz,” Sophie huffed, clearly less worried about their escape plan than Eliot was, “we could have just swapped the two of you out.”

“Learning skills that don’t involve electronics is good for him,” Eliot snorted softly.

“Well, it’s your turn if we ever have to teach Parker,” Sophie was tracking movement over his shoulder, “my feet can’t take another round of being stomped on.”

Eliot turned them so he could see what Sophie had been looking at. Atticus was pushing his way through the crowd so he could keep an eye on them; the man was not subtle.

“I’ll just make them dance with each other,” Eliot was suspicious the former special ops guy had figured out which direction he was leading them.

The good news was that most special ops guys wouldn’t want to cause a scene, so they would likely be able to get out of the ballroom. The bad news was, the chances of them getting out of the building without Eliot having to fight someone were low.

“That’s brilliant,” the affectionate smile reserved specifically for the team’s two idiot lovebirds graced Sophie’s face, “I’ll have to talk to Nate about taking more jobs that involve dancing.”

“You should talk to Nate about your buddy Atticus,” Eliot suggested, “maybe you can make him jealous.”

“It’s just a con, Eliot,” Sophie rolled her eyes.

“You’ve never sat in the van with Nate when someone is getting handsy with you,” Eliot teased.

“Do you think Hardison has any recordings of that?” Sophie gave a devious grin.

“He does say he records everything,” Eliot shrugged, “when we get closer to the service hall, we’ll try to slip out, but we’ll probably have to deal with his bodyguards. Are you good to run?”

“Always,” Sophie smiled at him, completely confident in his ability to keep her safe.

It still made his chest go tight when he realized just how much the team trusted him, how sure they were that he would always save them. By this point, he had two lifetimes worth of people he hadn’t been able to save, and there were moments when the team’s unreserved trust made him feel sick to his stomach.

Not tonight though. Tonight, they would be walking out together.

* * *

“Walk me up?” Sophie asked, which was just another way of asking the same question she had already asked four times on their way to her place.

“I’m fine Sophie,” Eliot pulled into the underground parking garage of Sophie’s apartment building, “it’s just a few torn stitches.”

The bodyguards hadn’t really been a challenge, but his dress shoes had slipped on the linoleum floor, and he had ended up taking a hit from the special ops guy against his upper arm instead of blocking it against his forearm. The impact had popped a couple stitches and reopened the gash. It really wasn’t a big deal, but he was bleeding and that seemed to be bothering Sophie.

“I’ve had a very trying night,” Sophie said airily, “humor me. Anyway, I ended up with some of your clothes mixed in with mine last time we had to leave a hotel in a hurry. You should at least come up and change into something more comfortable, and I can get your jacket and shirt soaking before the blood stains sets in too badly.”

Eliot didn’t really care about the tux, but it would be nice to change into more comfortable clothes and re-wrap his arm before he got blood on anything else. Home wasn’t that far away though, and he had left a mess behind in his kitchen in his rush to get to Sophie. If he let Sophie drag him up to her place while she was feeling guilty about him getting hurt, it could be hours before he got home.

“I left dinner sitting out half cooked,” Eliot shook his head, “I should really get home and clean it up.”

He was going to have to toss the mushrooms for sure, but the stock would probably be okay as long as he gave it a good boil before he used it again. He still had a little bit of leftover chicken in the fridge. He could probably…

“Well, it’s not going to go anywhere,” Sophie pointed out, “stop being so stubborn and come up. I’ll order in for dinner. It’s the least I can do.”

Eliot knew a losing battle when he saw one.

“Fine,” Eliot gave up, “no dinner though. I’m just going to get changed, and then I really do need to head home.”

“Of course,” Sophie said without even attempting to sound sincere.

Eliot resigned himself to staying for dinner.

What he hadn’t expected was Sophie pulling out her med kit and demanding he show her how to take care of torn stitches. Eliot knew what she was doing. Parker was the only one on the team who had ever shown interest in expanding her first aid knowledge; the only reason Sophie even had a med kit was because Eliot had put it together for her.

It was hard for Eliot to pass up an opportunity to impart at least a little medical knowledge to a teammate, though, even if Sophie was only showing interest as a ploy to get him to take care of his arm sooner instead of later. He made her do the work just to poke at her a bit for trying to manipulate him.

Sophie wasn’t squeamish like Hardison or driven to drinking by all things medical like Nate, and she listened carefully as he talked her through removing the torn stitches, cleaning the wound, and putting in the new stitches. She balked a bit at doing the stitches, nervous that there was no lidocaine, but there were only three of them that needed to be redone, and Eliot hadn’t bothered to put any lidocaine in Sophie’s kit because she didn’t know how to use it.

Actually, that was kind of disappointing. He could have walked her through using it if she had had any. He had mostly let Parker stitch up the gash in the first place just to make her practice calculating lidocaine dosage and injection distribution. He’d have to grab some for Sophie’s kit next time he thought about it.

“All done,” Sophie said briskly, wiping her hands on a towel.

“Nice job,” Eliot gave the new stitches an appraising look.

“Thank you,” Sophie eyed the entire length of the gash with a displeased look, “I think I’ll leave it to you and Parker when there’s an option though.”

Eliot frowned at the crease that was forming between her eyebrows. Sophie had much stronger opinions about injuries than Eliot did, or at least stronger opinions about Eliot’s injuries than Eliot did.

“It’s good,” he assured her, “it just needs to be cleaned up and wrapped now, and it will be fine.”

“Go take a shower then,” Sophie shooed him away from the table, “I’ll find your clothes and order us some dinner.”

Eliot thought about protesting and trying to head home again, but a shower would be nice, and he really was hungry. He would have to cook himself if he went home, and as much as he liked cooking, it was late.

“Fine,” Eliot pushed himself out of his chair and headed to the bathroom.

Sophie ordered Thai from the really good place on 12th, and Eliot could tell just from the smell that she had ordered his preferred spice level and not hers, which she really didn’t have to do.

Eliot didn’t know how to make the team understand that it was okay when he got hurt; they didn’t need to feel bad about it unless they had done something really stupid to cause it. It wasn’t his job to get hurt (usually), but it just came with the territory. It had always come with the territory for him, and at least with this team, there was an effort made not to put him directly in the line of fire as plan A, or really even plan B or C.

The Thai was really good, though, and Eliot felt like he had talked himself hoarse more than once trying to get Sophie to understand and made almost no progress, so he let it be, kicking his bare feet up on Sophie’s coffee table and settling down to watch the French heist movie she put on without subtitles.

Sophie curled on the other end of the sofa, making a good go at pretending like the food wasn’t too spicy for her and drinking the absolute wrong type of tea to have with Thai food, although the amount of cream she had put in it was probably helping with the spiciness. It didn’t take her long to grab the blanket off the back of the sofa and pull it over both their laps, followed by shoving her cold feet under Eliot’s thigh, which earned her a half-hearted thump on her shine. At least her feet weren’t as cold and bony as Parker’s.

They settled down to watch the movie and pick at the remaining Thai. Sophie had gotten konom sai sai, koa tom mud, and black rice pudding for dessert, and Eliot could appreciate her absolute lack of shame when it came to her sweet tooth. She would probably like khanom tom or kanom baa bin, and Eliot had been looking for an excuse to try to…

“I’m sorry I didn’t do better recon on Atticus,” Sophie said abruptly.

Eliot was well into his mental ingredient list and which of his buddies’ grandmothers he’d have to suck up to to get authentic recipes, and it took him a moment to process what she had said, but when he did, he reached under the blanket and pinched her calf.

“Ow!” Sophie kicked him lightly in the thigh, then tucked her feet back under it, wiggling her toes in an obnoxious way that would have done Parker proud.

“Just let it go, Soph,” Eliot did the mature thing and didn’t tickle her under the knee the way he would have with Parker, “I’m glad you called.”

Sophie frowned at him, “it matters when you get hurt. You understand that, don’t you?”

Eliot was willing to admit, to himself at least, that he liked that it mattered to them if he got hurt. It felt a lot like being wanted as person instead of a skill set, and it had been a long time since that had happened. He liked it, but it was dangerous, for them and for him. He needed there to be no hesitation on their part to call him in when things got rough. He needed them to not stop to try to figure out if he would be hurt. He would tell them if he couldn’t do it; everything else in those kinds of situations needed to be irrelevant.

He was pretty sure it was a problem that he liked that it wasn’t.

It wasn’t a problem he was going to solve tonight, though, so he gave Sophie’s shin a pat and nodded, then pinched her again when she tried to say more.

“You’re insufferable,” Sophie huffed.

“Just doing my job, darling,” Eliot grinned at her.

“Well, thank you for doing it so well,” Sophie’s smile was genuine, less bright and flowery than the smile she used on marks.

“You’re welcome,” Eliot returned the smile, then settled back down to watch the rest of the movie.

* * *

They hadn’t even sat down to brief for the job yet when Eliot found a shoe box sitting on top of his gear. There was only one person who would buy him shoes, and she was currently on the couch fawning over potential jewelry heists with Parker.

He opened the box and found a pair of new dress shoes in his size. They looked normal enough until he noticed the strange tread pattern on them and ran his hand over the soles. Sophie must have had them custom made to have slip-resistant bottoms.

There was a note tucked neatly into one of the shoes. When he unfolded it, it read, _It matters._

Eliot pretended not to notice Sophie watching him out of the corner of her eye, a quietly pleased look on her face, as he carefully tucked the shoes back in their box and stored them with his equipment.

There weren’t any easy solutions to the particular problem the team was presenting him with, but maybe that was something he could live with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up is Nate, but I can't be sure when I'll get a chance to finish his chapter.


End file.
